HE may confess to never having got his head around this city’s obsession with football, but Professor Michael Brown can certainly call himself an adopted Scouser.

And although he has announced that he will be stepping down next year after more than 10 years as the vice-chancellor and chief executive of Liverpool John Moores University, he has made it clear he will be staying in Merseyside.

Professor Brown has put down many roots here and serves as a great example of what this resurgent region can offer the outsider who decides to make it their home.

As the Hereford-born, Nottingham-raised man says, himself, Liverpool is a city which readily welcomes incomers – although the locals will soon let you know if you mess up!

History will judge the scale of Professor Brown’s legacy, but many may already be predicting that the JMU’s World of Work initiative, the unique programme designed to boost students’ job prospects, will be towards the top of his list of achievements.

It has seen students working shoulder to shoulder with a host of High Street names. And in an age when our universities cannot afford to consist of ivory towers which have little link to the real world, the programme has delivered time and time again.

Having already spent a decade as vice-chancellor, Prof Brown’s views on the future of education deserve to be heard – not least by the decision-makers of Westminster.

He has voiced fears about the potentially devastating consequences of a sharp rise in tuition fees, believing it may price many would-be students out of places at universities – not least universities like JMU, which prides itself on an inclusive admissions policy.

There are many lessons people can learn from Prof Brown, not least relating to the importance of education – as well, of course, as the importance of Merseyside!